Can a Shift From WordPress be Fun?
For the hyper-competitive the shift is a slam dunk. Oversized wins, modest corporate budgets, and the competion left unaware of even what happened to their now inferior position in the marketplace.
For the rest of us, we have to evaluate the shift more by the experience.
Team Experience
Working in a corporate environment can be fun. Especially when things are working.
That feeling when you're not fighting technologies, team members can contribute and collaborate, and it all just works.
"WordPress occupied that fun space, maybe 20 necessary plugins ago. I can still remember ... now we have to migrate, and to be honest, I'm not sure I'm so excited about these next few steps."
What Changed?
Change is fun for some people, not for most. So how much change is a WP migration, anyway?
Let's attempt to be fair, here. In one respect, we're not going to change anything. Our content migrates as is. Or, at least, it does if we want to - and we can pick any approach we want.
The new system really isn't that different than our old fave WP. It uses templates, just like WP. And it loops through the templates for each piece of content, just like WP. Same same. We can even style it the same, even though most won't.
What's to Come?
So if it's all the same, what's different?
Config, and when the templates run. That is what is different. We're going to move the configuration stuff out of a remote database, and we're going to run the content through the templates only when the last content change happens.
You wouldn't think that such subtlety would make such a difference. But a static site generator (SSG) is sneaky like that. Subtlety is just the cool face of this shift.
Faster. Simpler. Cheaper. And dumber too, where "dumb" means not so clever that it gets in it's own way. So that part really is fun.
In this game, what is to come is we can run with the best, most capable sites on the web. No apologies. No compromises. You might enjoy that.
Fun With Features
Let's take a reality check, here. Is it realistic to think that all those WordPress plugins aren't serving some purpose that we're going to have to replace in the new system? Aren't we just moving WP problems to another system? That doesn't sound fun.
Deep breath.
Yes, and no, and maybe. Some of those features really will go away. I'll try not to be too technical here, but WP is 2003 LAMP stack (technology) - so a lot of these plugin features are more about the complexity of the LAMP stack than the needs of the final output.
- Backups? Git.
- Security? There's no more "server" to protect.
- Social Links? Just html.
The list goes on, but there's a theme to it.
Some of the WP plugins that are still needed will have direct replacements on NPM. So that's fun enough.
And others will just go away. "What does this WP plugin do?" Nobody is really sure.
Fun with Corporate Politics
But seriously folks. We all know where the real fun is, and isn't. And it has nothing to do with the technology.
Decisions will have to be made about re-styling or not or how, content, budgets. If it's a healthy corporate environment, these will be fun. Yay! New opportunities!
If it's a more toxic or less capable corporate environment ... not so much.
Summary
For 2021 most of the fun will be had by early adopters and healthy, super-competitive corporate teams.
In later years when the wave hits and the rest of the world tries to catch up with the early adopters, everyone will be more likely to share in the fun, and more of the kinks will be worked out.
Photo by Antonino Visalli on Unsplash